A little girl in primary school underwent chemotherapy for leukaemia. When she returned to school, she wore a scarf to hide the fact that she had lost her hair. But some of the children pulled it off, and in their nervousness laughed and made fun of her. The little girl was mortified and that afternoon asked her mother not to make her go back to school. Her mother tried to encourage her, saying “The other children will soon get used to it; anyway your hair will grow back again soon”.
The next morning, when their teacher walked into class, all t
he children were sitting in the seats, some still tittering about the girl who had no hair, while she shrank into her chair. “Good morning children,” the teacher said, smiling warmly in her familiar way of greeting them. She took off her coat and scarf. Her head was completely shaved.
After th
at a rash of children begged their parents to let them cut their hair. And when the child came to class with short hair newly bobbed, all the children laughed, not out of fear but out of joy in the game, and everybody’s hair grew back at the same time.
The Art of Possibility, Zander and Zander
